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Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Doctor Who - Farewell Matt: The Time of Angels & Flesh and Stone By @Paul_Bowler

Doctor Who:

The Time of Angels & Flesh
and Stone

Reviewed by Paul Bowler

"You're not talking to me, sir. The Angel has no voice. It stripped my cerebral cortex from my body and re-animated a
version of my consciousness to communicate with you. Sorry about the confusion."

The Doctor (Matt Smith and Amy
(Karen Gillan) visit the Delirium Archive, a museum in the distant future,
where they find a rather odd exhibit - a flight recorder inscribed with old
high Gallifreyan symbols. After discovering it is a the message is from Dr
River Song (Alex Kingston), who is currently travelling on the starship
Byzantium 12,000 years in the past, the Doctor uses the TARDIS to save her
before the ship crash lands on the planet Alfava Metraxis.

While Amy gets acquainted with
River Song, and her uncanny relationship with the Doctor, who still doesn’t
know who she really is as they keep meeting at different point in his time
stream. River tells the Doctor that the Byzantium’s cargo is a deadly Weeping
Angel, a quantum locked stone creature that can only move when nobody is
looking at it. As they survey the wreckage of the ship, River sends a message
to a squad of military clerics in orbit, commanded by Father Octavian (Ian
Glen), who beam down to help secure the Angel before the radiation leaking from
the ship restores it strength.

As the Doctor and River check out
a book written by a madman about the Weeping Angels, which states: “That which
holds the image of an Angel, becomes itself an Angel,” Amy becomes trapped in a
room where video footage of the Angel inside the Byzantium is running on a
continuous loop. They rush to help her but find the door is locked. The Doctor
warns Amy not to look at the Angel’s eyes, because they are the doorway of the
soul that allows the Angel’s to enter. Amy manages to deactivate the video loop
and switch off the screen, just as the Weeping Angel begins to emerge from the
screen into the room. Together they set off with Octavian’s troops to reach the
Byzantium, but in order to get there they must first find a path through “The
Maze of the Dead”, a dark and forbidding labyrinth full of humanoid statues
built by an ancient race, where Amy begins to feel something inside her eye…

The long journey takes a sinister
turn as Clerics begin to go missing. As the Doctor and River talk about the
ancient two headed race that built the statues, they suddenly notice how all
the statues only have one head, and must really be Weeping Angels! The slow,
gnarled creatures begin to take shape, stalking them through the shadows,
communicating with them by using the voice of the Cleric Bob (David Atkins),
who they have slain. The Doctor has to help Amy after she believes her hand has
been turned to stone, preventing her from moving, she is being influenced
because she look into the Angel’s eyes on the screen, so the Doctor bites her
hand to convince her.

Having been forced to the highest
point in the maze by the misshapen Angels, they find themselves directly below
the crashed ship. The Doctor shoots the gravity globe which allows them all to
jump up into the Byzantium and escape the Weeping Angels momentarily, but they
quickly follow them as they flee to the ships oxygen factory - a forest within
the ship itself. After noticing a familiar crack in the wall of the secondary
control room, the same one from young Amy’s bedroom in The Eleventh Hour, and
the Doctor suspects the Angels are trying to feed on the time energy.

Amy suddenly begins to count
backwards, but the Doctor stops her, instructing her to keep her eyes closed to
starve the Angel inside her brain and prevent it from killing her. With Amy
unable to move, the Doctor, River and Octavian go to find the main control
room, the Doctor learns that River is actually a prisoner who has been released
into Octavian’s custody, offering her help in return for a pardon. Octavian is
later killed by the Weeping Angels, while back in the forest the crack begins
to grow, swallowing up the Clerics guarding Amy, who must then follow the
Doctor’s instructions by radio to reach the control room. But as she blindly
makes her way past the Weeping Angels, she trips and falls, and they begin to
turn on her. Fortunately, River is able to teleport Amy to the control room
before they can kill her.

The power drain causes the ships
gravity to fail, sending all the Weeping Angels plummeting into the glowing
rift, which seals it as the rift up as the Doctor, Amy, and River hangs onto
the controls. Amy quickly recovers, the Doctor says goodbye to River before she
teleports back to the Clerics ship, but she tells him they will meet again soon
when the Pandorica Opens, which the Doctor dismisses that as nothing more than
a fairy tale. On their return to the TARDIS, Amy asks the Doctor to take her
back to the night they first left Earth. She shows him her room, and the wedding
dress and ring, saying she will marry Rory tomorrow. Suddenly she tries to
seduce the Doctor, but he backs away, having noticed that the date of Amy’s
wedding, 26th June 2010, is the same as the time explosion he believes is
responsible for the cracks that have been appearing in time. So he takes Amy
away so that he can try and figure out what is happening…

Right from the spectacular
opening scenes, where River sends the Doctor a message through time “hello
sweetie” before opening the air lock on the Byzantium, sending her hurtling
into the TARDIS, it’s clear that this is going to be very special adventure.
The Time of Angels and Flesh and Stone (2010) are the fourth and fifth episodes
from Matt Smith’s first season as the Doctor, written by showrunner Steven
Moffat, and directed by Adam Smith. These episodes also feature the return of
Steven Moffat’s brilliant creations, the Weeping Angels, from his third season
story Blink (2007). Here they return in force, in an action packed storyline
that makes them seem even more terrifying than before.

Matt Smith is already settling
into the role of the Doctor, bringing lots of his distinctive characteristics
to the fore, which will become a mainstay for his incarnation of the Time Lord
through subsequent seasons. There is a lot of humour as well, particularly when
he makes the TARDIS landing noise after River “parks” the ship. He also has to
save Amy from the Angels, his fear for her is almost palpable when she is
walking blindly through the forest, and his rage when trapped before he uses
the gun to save them at the cliff-hanger is quietly restrained, and almost
menacing in the intensity of Matt Smith’s delivery of his lines. I think this
is what made Matt Smith’s 11th Doctor so good, right from the start his performance
is more measured, and the way his Doctor often speaks very quietly to make his
point is a marked change from his predecessors.

This is also a great two part
story for Karen Gillan, who really gets to earn her stripes as a resourceful
companion, as she literally comes face to face with the Weeping Angels. Amy
manages to switch off the video of the Weeping Angel, but she has inadvertently
looked into its eyes, and allowed the creature to imprint itself on her brain.
There is horrific moment when she rubs her eye and dust pours out as they are
exploring the Maze of the Dead, and later her hand seems to turn to stone.
Perhaps most chilling of all is the countdown she does without even noticing
she is doing it, as the Angel continues to attack her from inside her own mind.
Steven Moffat crafted these scenes perfectly, as viewers it’s almost as if we
are stumbling thought the forest with Amy, as she blindly struggles to escape,
only to disturb the Angels who slowly begin to turn around and notice her.

Alex Kingston makes a very
welcome return as River Song, bursting back into the Doctor’s life once more,
always one step ahead, and tragically, as we would learn in the seasons to
come, always moving one step further way from him as well. The complex nature
of their relationship is a joy to behold. They are almost like an old married
couple, teasing and trying to get the better of each other. With her trademark
“spoilers” and TARDIS diary, River is a brilliant creation, and here we get to
enjoy what I feel is perhaps Kingston’s best performance in the role. Free of
the continuity of things to come, River Song is a vibrant and unpredictable
character. Later that sheen would diminish a little, but here she is gloriously
mischievous and equally mysterious. I also like how River gets to fly the
TARDIS and quickly forms a strong bond with Amy, and the two of them delight in
winding the Doctor up - although he still manages to win over River’s uses of
the blue “boring” switches by simply taking in the atmosphere outside the
TARDIS to identify the planet they’ve landed on.

The Weeping Angels themselves are
as fabulously eerie and creepy as ever. From the moment we see the Angel moving
on the screen towards Amy, growing ever nearer, until it begins to emerge from
the screen, much like the ghostly entity in the film, The Ring, they are always
lurking in the darkness and ready to strike. The statues in the Maze of the
Dead begin to come to life and turn into Angels; these lumpy, misshapen things
are absolutely horrific as they stalk the Doctor and his companions. When the
Angels use the voice of one of the Clerics, Bob, to taunt the Doctor, it offers
an even more gruesome aspect to the Angels powers. On the ship they become full
Weeping Angels, caught in the muzzle flash of gunfire, they advance
relentlessly, before cornering Amy in the forest. It is only really in the
closing moments, when the Angels fall into the rift, that some of the tension
is lost, and it seems that after such a build up they were then defeat a little
too easily.

This season the crack in young
Amelia’s bedroom wall plays a pivotal role in the events leading up to the
season finale. In Flesh and Stone the Doctor begins to realise how the rift is
linked to the crack in Amy’s wall, which has begun to appear throughout time
and space, erasing anyone from time that it comes into contact with, and is
somehow linked to a massive time explosion. These plot threads are left
unresolved for now, as the focus would soon shift to Amy and Rory, however they
would all become clear by the season finale The Pandorica Opens and The Big
Bang (2010) after all the Doctor’s enemies plot to imprison him. Looking back
now this remarkable story by Steven Moffat is ingeniously constructed, it slots
perfectly into the ongoing story arc, while still being immensely enjoyable as
a standalone story. The special effects are also outstanding, with some
excellent scenes in space, to the brooding menace of The Maze of the Dead;
through to the final showdown on the Byzantium, director Adam Smith’s work on
these episodes is exceptional.

The Time of Angels and Flesh and
Stone are both thrilling episodes, with terrific performances all round, and
together with the return of the Weeping Angels, this two- part story is a real
highlight of the fifth season of Doctor Who.

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